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Book Review: Hero of the Underground

by David Kindervater on July 1st, 2008

Blogcasting the National Football League, Blogcasting the NFL

Hero of the Underground: My Journey Down to Heroin and Back
by Jason Peter with Tony O’Neill, 304 pages, $24.95 (in-stores July 8)

Jason Peter’s new book, Hero of the Underground: My Journey Down to Heroin and Back (in-stores July 8), is as compelling as it is exasperating. I couldn’t put my advance copy down yet I couldn’t stand reading it — like the car wreck that was Jason’s life. He found total fulfillment in the game of football as a college All-American with the University of Nebraska. But his career and life went immediately downhill once he was drafted into the NFL by the Carolina Panthers. Somehow, he managed to survive four seasons, but not only did he not realize his professional football aspirations, he nearly lost his life in the aftermath of his short career.

I don’t even know if addiction is a strong enough word to describe what Jason Peter endured. What began as a dependence on pain killers to ease his broken and beaten body from years of abuse on the football field, Jason eventually found himself lost in a world of cocaine, crack and heroin. I have no experience in the area of drug dependence, but I can’t imagine anyone being more messed up than Jason was. How he’s even alive after the abuse he heaped upon himself is beyond me.

The seemingly endless back-and-forth struggle from rehab to relapse becomes aggravating and annoying to read for the better part of the book. Pathetic, I think, is the word I used as I wondered if there would ever be an end to Jason’s miserable plight. Sadly, for all the artificial happiness he manufactured; and all the subsequent despair he endured; and as much as he wanted to die; I wondered how he never managed to put a gun in his mouth and just end it. It certainly seemed to be the direction he was headed, especially considering he once attempted suicide with a deadly mix of 60-plus Vicodin painkillers, 20 Ambien sleeping pills and a bottle of vodka.

Before his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, retired quarterback Steve Young told me the reality of the end of his football career was like driving off a cliff. Some handle it better than others — meaning some can find purpose in their lives after football. Those that cannot turn to any and all means possible to fill that void. Jason certainly experienced the “any and all” version at the end of his playing days and essentially drove off that cliff.

I think this entire book can best be summed up in a paragraph from the second-to-final chapter. Jason wrote:

“I was no longer the center of my universe anymore. In reality, I never was, but I acted as if I was. The drugs fueled that. The game fueled that. My college days, and the adoration, fueled that. The kind of skewed reality I had existed in had warped me. I was a false God, but I didn’t realize it. When the narcotic of sporting adoration was no longer fueling this delusion, it was actual narcotics. My mother’s tears were as unreal and dissassociated from me as the idea of planets adrift in unknown galaxies. Nothing could penetrate my core. My insides were ice, and my need for drugs was everything in the world.”

As sad and morbid as this book is, I’ll go ahead and tell you it has a happy ending. But you already knew that, didn’t you? Because Jason Peter is still alive. Exactly how he’s living today is something you’ll have to find out for yourself. The moral of the story is that none of us is immune to the potential evils that surround us in our everyday lives. The hope is that there is hope. I’m convinced if Jason can come out of his personal hell, anyone can.

Note: Be forewarned — Hero of the Underground is not for the faint of heart. It’s chock full of profanity, promiscuous sexual behavior and drug use (obviously). Pre-order Jason Peter’s Hero of the Underground: My Journey Down to Heroin and Back today.

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